There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

75:

The diamond anniversary,

The life expectancy of a US male born in 2006,

470 miles of an interstate in Florida,

The numeric value of a C paper,

The age of Morgan Freeman,

The temperature on a mild spring day;

NOT, the appropriate setting for our thermostat.

Dude, it’s winter. Put some clothes on.

Addendum to this morning’s retrospectively Glee-like conversation singalong:

We were sitting on the couch,
orange cover over the length of it,
tan and tattered underneath,
buttons popped off upholstery
in no pattern
no better place to nap
I said, But please, just please don’t use the word “abandon,”
Never say that I abandoned her,
Never say that I left her
Like I was not coming back
Like love is enough to make anyone stay
Like any way we live is measured by the convention called “normal”

We do not know what will happen in June
It is the unwritten future point past which wondering works against us
We do not know what happens next
Who will be well?
Who will be here?
And what “need” means.

We were briefly quiet,
so I wondered,
then I laughed.
You asked, What’s funny?
Funny is the irony of our circumstances
The many of them that total this:
That each of us is now helping the other live in ways that have been fundamental sources of disagreement since marriage
constitutional departures of view
Helping or preparing to

Later, I drive in the afternoon drizzle.
On the sidewalk, I see the back of a girl small as Olive,
hoodied and high-topped, shouldering a bright backpack,
walking
Immediately, I miss her as if I am gone.
She has no idea.
I put out of my mind what we do not know past June

We are quiet again.
I look over at you on the other corner of the orange couch.
I say, I didn’t even know you still had that sweater.
That blue sweater bought faded and
flaring unreasonably at the waist
Old as our friendship.
Ever since I worked at Banana Republic, you remind me.
I had forgotten.
Of course, it’s fitting, you say; now, not then.
Fitting, I agree.

Banana.
Republic.

We Laugh.

Strong rhymes with wrong, but

that doesn’t mean anything.

Confusing pep talk.

S-B-a-n-a-n-a-s,

There’s a boutique in Florida, The Chameleon, where your sister used to work and where my mom still shops. I purchased there, on NYE day, a book called Broetry (Brian McGackin). It’s bananas.

Inspired by this book and the SEC loss (UF folded to Louisville in the Sugar Bowl), I’m going to share with you a broem I inadvertently wrote on a Waco to Austin drive in November. This is the height of simulacrum, since Broetry is a selection of poems a la Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams (and a bunch of others I don’t actually recognize) stylized for “dudes,” and this poem is just in the style of that style.

Ah, ah, hem, hem:

Fair Weather Fan

Let’s be honest for a sex,
a sec,
I said, SEC
The Southeastern Conference
The most storied franchise in the conference,
decorated,
I meant that like “dynasty,”
like the Cowboys
like Emitt Smith–
he was the quarter back when–
Of course, I know their names,
Danny Wuerffel,
Sophomore Heisman Tebow
Chris Leak was a looker when I was in school
My school?
Not a state school
Fumble
I cheer for my parents’ alma mater
a familial allegiance
go team
The winningest conference
Go, go, go—
Spurrier was their first Heisman,
coached their second
Recovery
Hey, your offense didn’t show up
It was wild
Wiiiild
Shut out
Ours?–top five
We?
I meant defense
like the defensive lie
I said, line
game-changing reception on a third down,
dominant
Goooo team!
Beat the Gamecocks
Cock-tail party?
Call it the World’s Largest Outdoor Turnover Party
Driskel couldn’t keep it in the hole
I meant that like “pocket,”
like, tackled
sacked
Listen, let’s be honest for a sec
I said, a sec
the length of a two-point conversion attempt
These underwear are cotton,
like the bowl,
unsexy
like the stubble on my legs,
like astroturf,
raunchy
My–?
Oh. my.
No.
I said Ron Cherry,
calls it like he sees it,
“giving him the business”?
Oh.
Well. we lost it.
Forced to punt on a holding penalty
I said, punt.
Punt?
Oh.
Don’t call me that.

SB:

We are driving to Tampa. It’s Tuesday. It’s the first of the year. 2013. Ominous, I say to you. 2013 sounds ominous as a year.

We are in the driver’s and passenger’s seats of my mother’s Ford Freestyle. Mom and Olive are playing Free Cell in the back. Tonight, we stay at my grandparents’ house to cut the travel time to the airport in the pre-dawn. Tomorrow, we fly from TPA to DAL.

We have been in Florida for two weeks. Over the course of this period, Olive has turned six, caught her first fish, and gained two pounds. Our other roommate, Goose, has been offered a job with a work visa in another state. I’ve applied to ## schools. A relative of mine has been diagnosed with cancer a second time. Relatives of other relatives are coming down with similar maladies. You feel unwell. I have heard repeated–mostly by my grandmother, Gram (76), whose house we are in en route to–’no one gets out of this alive.’ It’s her running joke for the holidays.

We are driving. I am trying to adopt a new way of being. Sort of. I’m tired of being the heavy friend / person / relational noun, though I doubt whether it’s constitutionally possible to be otherwise. Still, I’m working on this personal motif that I keep calling, “Lightness and Laughter.” In my mind it looks like LOL, so there’s that.

So I say to you, to stave off the ominousness, that the year should have a theme. Let’s give it a theme, I say. And trying to be all LOL, I further indicate that it does not have to be a serious affair. I say, it can be arbitrary, something like “bananas.” Year of the Banana, or YOB. I say, Years should have theme songs, too. So like, it could be that one song with the line, “This shit is bananas / b-a-n-a-n-a-s.” I ask if you, fan of radio pop music, if you know it.

You look it up. We play it over the stereo system of the middle-aged Ford Freestyle. It’s Gwen Stefani.

We listen to about five versions of this, as you have also found many people covering the song on YouTube. We determine that the original is the best. This is our theme song. This is the year of the banana.

This shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.